An effect of trauma

Controlling a partner

Having run a relationship by control. Checking their phone, managing their money, deciding who they see, keeping track of where they are. Using silence, threats, or your own distress to get compliance. It usually does not feel like control from the inside. It feels like fear, or like love, or like being the only one holding things together. It lands on the other person as a cage regardless of how it felt to you.

Almost nobody arrives at this page thinking of themselves as controlling, which is part of what makes it hold. If your partner has said they are afraid of you, take that as information rather than as an argument to win. What drives it is usually old and understandable. What it does to another adult is still the thing it is. It can be put down, and the people who put it down generally started by believing the person who told them.

It can sound like

“I check their phone.” “I need to know where they are.” “I make them feel bad until they give in.” “They say they are scared of me.” “I know I am doing what was done to me.”

If any of those sentences live in your head too, you are in good company here.

Experiences this often follows

Effects do not come from nowhere. These are some of the experiences that people who carry this one often describe. You do not need to have been through any of them for what you feel to be real.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

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